The Old Kingdom by  Garth Nix is one of the series that has been on my radar as ‘popular’ for a long time, but I never really looked into it. I ended up getting Abhorsen and Lirael dirt cheap on sales and finally picked up Sabriel, to read for the Australian author square on my normal mode card. When r/Aborhsen advertised a readlong I jumped in without really knowing anything about it. Readlong was supposed to be one chapter every few days,  but this book was too gripping for that. 

I was for some reason expecting ye olde fantasy, and this is … not that

Worldbuilding

The setting stands out as the first weird thing. It’s an interesting mix of modern, prewar or interbelic technology and ye olde magic kingdom, that’s gone to shit. There are two countries divided by a wall, and Sabriel starts the story in modernland. Sabriel’s a good necromancer, putting the Dead back into Death. There’s a lot of types of dead from shambling wraiths to the Great Dead able to control armies of minions. There is a magic system, based on symbols and aided by bells for the necromancy parts, but it’s usually taken as a given and not explained very much. We know Sabriel studied charter marks in school, but we didn’t study along with her. 

Themes

I thought the aspect of death, and relating to loss and mortality were well handled. Particularly how there are moments when characters have to put everything into fighting for their lives, and other  times when the only way forward is accepting a loss. For a YA book it went to some darker places than I was expecting. I also liked how Sabriel needed to rapidly grow up, stand on her own two feet and even project authority, no awkward teenage phase for her. 

Pacing

One of the things I loved about the plot was how the stakes kept getting higher. I think it might be called ‘thriller pacing’. There was a clear progression from welp, oh no, nononono, shit, FUCK, with the gravity and the scope of the problems constantly expanding as more details and backstory got revealed. I’m a huge sucker for a story going from ‘this is personal ‘ to ‘the fate of the kingdom is at stake’ to ‘the world might be fucked’. There is a lot of travelling, but with an ever bigger threat giving chase, it didn’t feel at all slow to me. I also liked how in between these very exhausting scenes, there were pauses, getting to a safe place and having rest, learning some new information. 

Characters

I really liked reading about Sabriel as a character. She gets shit done. She has studied hard and knows her stuff. She’s afraid, but she does whatever she has to despite that. Despite struggling a lot between her plans and free will and the destiny that is pulling at her, she doesn’t give up, because she knows she has a duty and people depending on her. There’s also Mogget, a magical cat who’s sort of Sabriel’s helper, sometimes he’s less than helpful, and other times, well, he’s something that’s for sure. I quite liked the big bad, though of all the characters I think he is closests to a fantasy stereotype, evil & power hungry for power’s sake, I am curious to see if that backstory gets developed more in the other books in the series. Touchstone, the other important character that shows up later on, was a bit bland for my taste, not anything particularly wrong about him, he just fades into the background. 

I find it hard to put my finger on why, but right from the start I kept thinking this book is so good. Though it does take a good long way to get properly started there’s something about the worldbuilding and the characters that I found gripping. Maybe it’s the mysterious & snarky magic cat, the horror of being chased by the Dead and fighting them off with only willpower and magic bells or just Sabriel’s grit in dealing with all this shit. 

It’s supposed to be a children/teen book, but it’s got none of the angsty awkwardness I usually hate about those. That said, I’ve been looking at other reviews and some people say they couldn’t connect to the characters or get invested in the story, YYMV I guess, I really loved it. 

Not really a story spoiler, just umm background info, but I thought it was hilarious when a teenage girl had to walk into Death to get proper advice about menstruation because her all girl school failed to offer it. 

Recommended to people looking for an interesting take on necromancy, strong female leads, a mix of magic and modern 

Bingo squares Australian author, local to somewhere in Australia, Ocean setting, can be audiobook